It’s time for us to grow up, to put away childish things and delve into the deep things of God.

Some may ask, “How do I do that?”

We need to study to show ourselves approved rightly dividing the word of God for it’s sharper than a two edged sword or a surgeon’s scalpel. It divides soul and spirit and it reveals all things. We need to speak to God and listen to God. We need to learn to hear His voice and recognize it. In other words we need to be in a constant conversation with God so that we can be about His business in this world.

Often we pray for God to guide our steps and then do nothing as we wait. God cannot guide our steps if we aren’t stepping. Step out in faith and He’ll sustain us as we work for Him. That’s right. It may have been free admission but it isn’t a free ride. God has called us to work. And He has given us the tool to do the work: faith.

Don’t believe me believe Him.

It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him. And part of that faith is knowing that He didn’t send us out to work for Him without equipping us with what we need to accomplish that work.

Jesus said, “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.”

And He didn’t just say it once or twice. He said it over and over, “This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I’ve revealed to you. Ask in my name, according to my will, and he’ll most certainly give it to you.”

Jesus wasn’t keeping this ability to accomplish the work He’s called us to do miraculously through the power of His Name a secret. He told us numerous times that praying in His Name, in line with His purposes was more than just effective it’s powerful.

He also told us that we’ve been chosen to do His work in the world in His Name, “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.”

The time for hesitation is through. Once we confess Him as Lord and believe that God has raised Him from the dead we are born again. There’s no time to linger at the edge of the pool waiting for someone else to do the heavy lifting. Dive head first into the deep end. Turn away from the weak and beggarly elements of this world and embrace life in His eternal presence which begins the moment we’re born again and translated from the kingdom of darkness in this world into the kingdom of light in His presence.

We all have questions for God. I know my first was “Why me.” Then once we’ve taken up residence in His city on a hill we move on to, “What do You want me to do?” quickly followed by “How am I supposed to do that?” He isn’t looking so much for ability as He is for availability. And remember: where God guides God provides. If He’s called you to it you can do it. Just have faith, talk to Him, listen to Him, and watch as He turns your life into Acts Chapter twenty-nine.

Whatever questions, whatever problems, whatever opportunities we face in this life prayer is the answer and faith is the key.

As a retired pastor I am still amazed at the number of people who came forward week after week repenting of sins and seeking salvation. It was often the same people week after week. No matter how much I preached it, no matter how much I taught it, so many never seemed grasp the idea that the cleansing of sins, salvation, and righteousness are free gifts given to us by our Father.

People would cry, “I’ve been seeking after God for years. I’ve laid at the altar and pleaded over and over for God to guide me, to save me, to help me, and nothing happened. I leave the altar the same poor sinner as when I went up there.”

My heart breaks for any and all who labor under such beggarly results.

My mind would scream as my voice would say, “Salvation is a gift. It isn’t necessary for you to go anywhere to get it. You can find it anywhere. It isn’t what you do, it’s what Jesus has done. All there is to getting saved and to becoming a child of God is to receive something for free. You can’t earn it by doing anything.”

Most of us have been taught and have accepted that it was all about giving up, surrendering, and confessing sins. It isn’t. It is receiving Jesus Christ as our Savior and confessing Him as our Lord.

I have had people say, “It can’t be that simple.”

It is that simple. It’s free and it’s available to everyone, everywhere, at all times.

Some have asked, “But don’t we have to do something about our sins?”

No, He has done everything that ever could be done. And this isn’t some new teaching or revelation. Our Father God told us about it through His prophet Isaiah long ago, “We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.”

This is speaking about all of us. We have all gone our own way, done what we wanted without any reference to what God wanted us to do. We were stubborn and willful yet the Father laid the penalty for all that on Jesus. Notice there was nothing we had to do to save or help ourselves.

So how do we get from knowing this in our heads to having this become life in our hearts? John tells us, “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”

Once again we do nothing except receive a free gift.

John also tells us “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is the Father giving His Son Jesus as our substitute, as our Savior and all He asks is that we accept Him for what He said He is. There is nothing for us to do except believe that He paid the debt owed for our sin and that He rose from the Dead to bring us life. Or as Paul put it, “who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

God delivered Jesus to pay the punishment for our sins and He was raised from the dead when He had paid the full measure, and all we have to do is accept that. We don’t have to do anything to earn what He has already paid for.

Paul sums it all up well in the next verse when he says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now besides salvation we have peace. There is nothing standing between us and God we are at peace and still there is nothing for us to do is there?

Paul tells us as clearly as can be how this all comes about and what the result is when he says, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

Look at that a little closer: when we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord that should be the end of us going our own way and doing our own thing. If you’re anything like I was before I did this that shouldn’t be too hard considering where our own choices and our own things have brought us. In other words if I relinquish being the Lord of my life and give that place to Jesus I will no longer be separated from God and I will become His child, a member of His family with all the rights and responsibilities that means.

If we do this what does the Word say? It says that we will be saved. When does it say we will be saved? It happens as soon as we believe. This isn’t pie-in-the-sky. This is here and now reality. What does the Word say we are when we believe? It says we are now children of God. Does that mean now or someday way over there in the future when we get to heaven? No it says we have it now even if we don’t know fully what that means. Or, as John put it, “now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

How do we know all this is true? How do we know that as soon as we confess and believe we are born again into a new life right here right now? John tells us, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”

Having learned this do you believe in the Name of Jesus?

If you do then you have eternal life. Eternal life is the nature of God. That means you now have the nature of God. You are no longer a fallen sinner who needs to beg forgiveness you are filled with the very nature of God. Peter put it very clearly when he said, “by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” That corruption is spiritual death and we have escaped it by receiving the divine nature: eternal life.

So don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to get good enough to get saved, or to see your life change. None of us could ever be that good. It isn’t about what we do. It’s about what He has done. It isn’t about who we are. It’s all about who He is. He paid the price. He purchased the freedom of all humans from the grip of Satan, and he extends that freely to all who believe He is who He said He is, that He rose from the dead and that He is the Savior of all who believe in Him.

Come on. It’s free and it’s yours for the taking. Why wait another moment. You can have it right here right now. Confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and it’s yours.

Got it? Done it? Now tell someone. Shout it from the rooftops you are a child of God living an eternal life in fellowship with our Father. Welcome to the family.

Does the immensity of creation ever overwhelm you? Does the fact that when you lay your hand on the cold hard surface of a table there is actually more space than matter in the table numb your mind? When you’re sitting on a beach letting the sand run through your fingers have you ever reflected on the thought that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth? Has the image of reality extending as deep through a microscope as it does through a telescope make you grasp for understanding when all you can possibly understand is that you can’t understand this immensity at all?

Science tries to explain it all.

Back in the 1890s Albert Abraham Michelson an American physicist known for his work on measuring the speed of light who received the Nobel Prize in Physics, becoming the first American to win the Nobel Prize in a science put it this way, “While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance — where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical sciences are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.”

In other words the deepest thinkers came to the conclusion there was nothing new to be discovered in physics. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.

Since then the theories of Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have shown us that we know a lot less than we thought we did. I guess it took a genius like Einstein to discover that we aren’t as smart as we think we are. And yet most of us who figured that out by about eighth grade continue to listen to these geniuses when they tell us they can figure out everything else.

And while science is pretty good at explaining the “how” of things they always leave out the “Why.”

They can tell us there was a BIG BANG (the “Let there be” experience for believers) they even try to tell us how there was BIG BANG, but they never even attempt to tell us why there was BIG BANG.

And to my mind and my heart the why is more important than the how.

Science is great at identifying things. They are passable at explaining things. Yet, when it comes to this ultimate question of why, science never utters a sound.

Look at life. Scientists can identify it. They can quantify it. They have attempted to tell us how it became so diversified. They now even say they can create it. But they never tell us why there is life.

Have you ever wondered why?

Life is the essence of the universe. Life is the ultimate goal and it’s the meaning of everything.

The Bible is the why book. It is the operating manual for life. It not only tells us how … God created everything. It tells us why … as a dwelling place for the crown of His creation … humanity.

The teaching of the Fatherhood of God takes a decided turn with Jesus, for “Father” was His favorite term for addressing God. It appears on His lips some sixty-five times in the Synoptic Gospels and over one hundred times in John.

Because of Jesus’ use of this metaphor, it is not surprising that the rest of the New Testament also emphasizes the Fatherhood of God. In the Pauline letters God is described as “Father” over forty times. It occurs in blessings (Rom 1:7 ; 1 Cor 1:3), doxologies (Rom 15:6), thanksgivings ( 2 Cor 1:3 ; 1 Thess 1:2-3), prayers (Col 1:12), exhortations (Eph 5:20), and creeds (1 Cor 8:6 ; Eph 4:6). For Paul this fatherhood is based not so much on God’s role in creation but rather on the redemption and reconciliation he has made available in Jesus Christ. This is why Paul refers to “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 15:6 ; 2 Cor 1:3 ; 11:31). It is through the work of Christ that God invites us to call him “Abba, Father.” It is through Christ that grace and peace have resulted and we have become God’s children (Rom 8:12-16 ; 1 Peter 1:3-4 ; 1 John 3:1).

This is not to say that God is male. He is spirit and as such is neither male nor female. It is not to denigrate motherhood. For who among us would desire to live in a world without a mother’s love. When God is referred as a father, this is simply the use of a metaphor in which he is likened to a kind and loving father. And if we were to tip our hat to the political correctness of the day by avoiding the metaphor of father as a description and designation for God we would lose sight of the fact that Jesus chose this as His metaphor to address God and that He taught this as the metaphor by which His disciples should address God.

It also loses sight of the continuity established by the use of this metaphor with those who have called God “Father” over the centuries. These include the disciples; the earliest congregations (Rom 8:15 ; Gal 4:6); the earliest church councils (“I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth “); and Christian churches all over the globe who over the centuries have prayed together “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.”

Because of God’s Fatherhood the heart of the Eternal Father longed for children. This is why He created Adam and Eve and gave them the power to go forth and multiply. Unfortunately they sinned and fell short of the glory of God. There was no way back. They had surrendered their place as God’s companion, the gardener of Eden to Satan and were cast out.

But God in His infinite mercy and love made a way back.

He sent Jesus to live a sinless life and then die as the sacrifice, the payment for all our sins so that all who have faith in Him can be counted as righteous and thus re-united with God.

It’s all summed up in this; if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

We are born lost and rejected, children of sin and children of the devil. If we turn away from the world and accept Jesus as our Savior we are born again and we become children of God in Christ.

This is the why. All of creation is for one reason and that is to bring children to God and fulfill the Father’s love that is His heart.

So science may try to tell us how but you see the why is more important than the how.

A short story to highlight the what, the where, and the how:

A scientist says to God, “You’re not so much we have figured out how to make life in our laboratories.”

God says, “Oh, you have.”

The scientist, swelling with pride then says, “Come on let’s have a contest and see who can make life the quickest and the best.”

God smiles and says, “All right.”

God reaches down and picks up a hand full of dirt and starts molding it gently.

The scientist adds some chemicals to a couple of test tubes and starts mixing them back and forth.

God looks over at the scientist and says, “Hey! Get your own dirt.”

From atom to Adam God has done it all. So if you find yourself hung up in the how just remember the why is more important than the how. And if you find yourself questioning God just remember, “He’s the Father that’s why.”

I look at my life before Christ and I am struck by the fact that it doesn’t seem like my life. I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980. I was thirty years old. That has been thirty-eight years ago. When I was first saved I mourned for all the years I had spent wasting my life trying to do it on my own. I remember praying and asking God to give me as many years to serve Him as I had wasted denying Him. Now, that is just one of the answered prayers in my life.

From the first day I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior I have done have never denied Him and standing on the faith He has given me I never will. Have I always served Him? Yes. Have I always served Him well? He will be the judge. Have I ever fallen short of what He would have me be? Yes, constantly, consistently, and often consciously. Just as the greatest sinner and the greatest saint I will stand or fall based on His grace.

In my years before Him I lived my life into a dead-end of self-seeking, selfishness, and self-loathing. Though I denied He even existed He reached out to me. Though I took His name in vane he loved me. Though I followed hedonism into every type of sin He washed me as clean as a new born baby, as clean as a new blanket of snow.

Jesus delivered me from alcoholism, from drug addiction, from hatred, from envy, and shame. He gave me a new life complete with a new wife, a son, a healthy mind, a healthy body, and a new name.

What He has done for me He will do for you. He loves you as much as He has ever loved anyone. Your name is written on His hand and no one not sin, not hatred, not failure, and not the devil can snatch you out of His hand.

Trust in Him. Reach out to Him and He will reach out to you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Being God He did not grasp at that but instead emptied Himself and became a man. Living a perfect life He was sacrificed for the children of Adam paying the price for every sin and opening the way through faith to become the children of God. For if we will confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord an believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we will be saved.

And salvation is not just pie in the sky. It is not just a far off reward for a life of toil and pain. Salvation is a right now new life, a life where we will never be alone for He will send His Spirit to live within us.

Don’t let anything hold you back when Jesus wants to hold you up.

This is what Easter means to me life from death and life evermore. An old song sums it up rather well:

Living he Loved Me
Dying he saved me
Buried He carried my
My sins far away
Rising he justified me
Freed me forever
One day he’s coming back Glorious day

Like this:

When I was young I was not a nice fellow. Snakes would cross the street when I sauntered down the sidewalk. My all consuming passion was getting enough alcohol and drugs to help me forget something I couldn’t remember. Playing music and living in a 24/7 party atmosphere was all I cared about. Other people were collateral damage on my way to a buzz. I had the name of my guitar tattooed on my arm so women would know where my loyalties lay.

Spiritually I was dead inside. I called myself an atheist and I was faithful to my boast. Anyone who spoke to me of any religion was automatically consigned by me to irrelevance. The closest thing I had to an actual conviction was a strident attachment to militant apathy. I didn’t care about anything and I couldn’t stand anyone who did.

That was my life until I was thirty. Then God spoke to me. God touched me. God changed me. God gave me a new life. I was born again.

Today I can remember what I did in my former life but I can no longer relate to it. It as if my life before God was a movie I have seen. I can recall the important scenes and the important characters but I feel a complete detachment to being one of the actors in the plot.

God gave me a wife who is the love of my life. He gave me a son who is my heir and friend. He gave me a daughter-in-love who is the daughter I always wanted to have. He has given me two grandchildren who are the joy of my life as a seasoned citizen. He has allowed me to see miracles, plant churches, be a pastor, found ministries that fed and clothed thousands, watch people accept Him, watch people grow in Him, and hold the hands of people who went to join Him.

I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980 so I just had my 37th birthday as a child of God. I give Him the glory for my life. I give Him the honor that is His due. I cannot even give a fraction of the love He has shown. He is my source, my summit, and my all.

As we approach the celebration of His rising from the dead I am reminded of the fact that it is faith that saves us and that not of our self for even the faith is a gift. I look about at all the traditions and customs we have developed in more than two thousand years and I smile. I pray that everyone who calls on His name has a blessed and joyous Resurrection Day. Enjoy the season as best meets the requirements of your faith.

Let us all recall that if we confess Jesus as Lord and if we believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we shall be saved.

That is the truth, the truth upon which all of reality rests. That is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, all the rest is window dressing. Just as one enjoys Italian food and another enjoys Chinese yet all food is good to those who like it. So too, our traditions and customs if they do not detract from the truth of by who and how we are saved are all good.

Have a wonderful time with family and friends, coreligionists and those C&E Christians who make it standing room only at so many normally empty churches at this time of year. Love them all and let God sort them out. Just remember, the biggest surprise when we get to heave in not who is there but that we are for it is not by works but by faith that we are saved. The greatest saint and the worst sinner both need the Lord’s grace to enter in.

There is no sin so great that it cannot be forgiven if we lay it at the cross. He knows us better than we can ever know ourselves and he forgives us. Don’t labor under a load you were never meant to carry any further than the cross. Give it all to Him and he will give you rest.

I praise Him for saving me. I Praise Him for giving me life. I ask Him to open doors for me to serve Him. And when I am gone there is but one eulogy I wish anyone to hear, “God got the glory!”

Like this:

Yoko Ono and John Lennon, a Buddhist and a who-knows-what Maharishi chasing pop singer who said the “Beatles are bigger than Jesus,” wrote a Christmas song. It’s a classic. We hear it every year. If you really listen to the lyrics it is about a world where everyone gets along, there is no fear, and “war is over, if you want it, war is over now.” Everyone thinks the title to this much beloved and much played song is “So This Is Christmas.” Those are really just the first words and part of the refrain. The title is actually “Happy Christmas (war Is Over),” so it should surprise no one that it wasn’t written as a Christmas song. Instead it was written as an anti-Vietnam War song disguised as a Christmas song. Yet, it’s a classic. We hear it every year.

This brings me to the question, “What is Christmas”? I believe it is such a personal thing it can truly only be answered as “What is Christmas to me”?

Is it an arbitrary date instituted by the Roman Emperor Constantine (he was the first Christian Roman Emperor). The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25th was in 336AD during the reign of Constantine. In 350 AD Pope Julius I declared December 25 the official date and in 529 AD Emperor Justinian declared Christmas a civic holiday.

There is no Biblical evidence to support the date. Bible History tells us, “Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled.”

We know it isn’t just a date. So what is Christmas?

Is it a baptized celebration of the winter solstice? Is it a cultural holiday to celebrate love and family? Is it all about Frosty and Rudolph and George Bailey? No, I don’t believe that this is the answer to the question “What is Christmas?” and I know it isn’t the answer to the question, “What is Christmas to me”?

What is Christmas?

Culturally Christmas is more than the sum of all its parts. It is the public declaration that we are a Christian culture founded upon faith in His declaration, “I am” when he was asked “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” It is a public declaration that we as a people dedicate ourselves to living as Christ taught us we should no matter how imperfectly we do so.

What is Christmas to me?

It is a time to celebrate the love that Christ has birthed in my heart for friends and family. It is a time to cherish the traditions which have become Holy through usage and dear through memory. Above all it is a time to affirm in my heart that Jesus is the only name under heaven by which men must be saved and that Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior.

Christmas is a time to give gifts in memory of the greatest gift of all: Christ the friend of sinners given to a world that did not know Him when He arrived, does not honor Him now, and will not be prepared when He comes again.

The greatest gift I could ever give I give to you. The Bible is the unadulterated Word of God and it does not leave us any doubt about how to be saved. In the Bible is something called by many the Romans Road. I followed it years ago, and it changed me forever and gave me a new life. I pray that it will do the same thing for you.

The Romans Road lays out the plan of salvation through a series of Bible verses from the book of Romans . When arranged in order, these verses form an easy, systematic way of explaining the message of salvation. There are many different versions of Romans Road with slight variations in Scriptures, but the basic message and method is the same. Many evangelical missionaries, evangelists, and lay people memorize and use Romans Road when sharing the good news.

Romans Road Clearly Defines:

Who needs

Why we need salvation.

How God provides salvation.

How we receive salvation.

The results of salvation.

Romans Road to Salvation

Everyone needs salvation because we have all sinned.Romans 3:10-12, and 23As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” … For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.(NLT)

The price (or consequence) of sin is death.Romans 6:23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.(NLT)

Jesus Christ died for our sins. He paid the price for our death.Romans 5:8But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.(NLT)

We receive salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.Romans 10:9-10, and 13If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved … For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”(NLT)

Salvation through Jesus Christ brings us into a relationship of peace with God.Romans 5:1Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.(NLT)

Romans 8:38-39And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.(NLT)

Responding to Romans Road

If you believe Romans Road leads to the path of truth, you can respond by receiving God’s free gift of salvation today. Here’s how to take a personal journey down Romans Road:

Admit you are a sinner.

Understand, that as a sinner, you deserve death.

Believe Jesus Christ died on the cross to save you from sin and death.

So this is Christmas: The birth of Jesus Christ the Son of God, God Himself clothed in flesh, the incarnate creator of the universe here to open the way for his creation to be reunited with Him. This makes possible our new birth as a child of God. It’s open to all. It’s free. It is yours for the taking, and you can unwrap this present any day of any year.